This web site has frequent slowdowns and could use some optimization. That sort of thing often is a custom job, but it couldn't hurt to block the bandiwidth-wasting spambots and scrapers and fine-tune the cache controls. I wonder how many of these slowdowns are the result of some ravenous scraper that is grabbing every single link on the site.

igor83 wrote:This web site has frequent slowdowns and could use some optimization. That sort of thing often is a custom job, but it couldn't hurt to block the bandiwidth-wasting spambots and scrapers and fine-tune the cache controls. I wonder how many of these slowdowns are the result of some ravenous scraper that is grabbing every single link on the site.

What I'm thinking, and I could be wrong, is that bad bots are hogging too much bandwidth. Without looking at the server log one can't say for sure...but I do know there are some greedy scrapers in the wild that will hammer every message in a forum like this one.

It could just mean that Mint has become too popular. If the server running this forum is too old and slow to handle the traffic it now gets then this is what might happen. They may need a new and faster server, upgraded phpBB forum software (copyright at the bottom says 2007) or an upgraded MySQL.

xenopeek wrote:Performance of the websites has been under close observation for a while, with the team looking at the right steps to take to improve performance. Few things were already done.

Preparations have been made for moving to better servers, which is currently planned to be done on Monday. So hold on a while, and let's see next week

Awesome news! I think that is important, because the web site represents the brand, and newcomers may otherwise draw hasty and mistaken conclusions.

I have a vendetta of sorts against spambots, scrapers and attack-bots, due to old battle-scars in the past, so that is my particular angle, but of course, increased server capacity and an upgraded backend will also deal with the situation very nicely.